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Have you seen the article on the pot grinder on the cooking issues blog? lol http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/07/27/thank-god-for-potheads-new-favorite-tool-in-the-knife-bag/

It seems like he favors a very firm and dry pasta dough compared to what I'm used to. Harder to need and roll out that keller's dough or some of the other high egg yolk doughs I've made. I've only made Bertolli's doughs a couple times though (the semolina and water as well as the whole egg pasta), But I'd love to here your experience working with the dough. I'd love to see a video of him making the dough. He has a lot of great information in the book, but the recipes themselves are VERY skimpy on detail of what to look for. I have Bugali on Pasta as well and think it's a a much better book for most people, with a lot of detail, drawings of the rolling proceedures, a lot of great recipes. Of course if you're a 5%er then and want to grind your flour, make your own version of Italian cured meats or sun dried tomato paste. Well Bertolli's your guy.

Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! Please, Lady Pleaser, say that you are being facetious in recommending Starbucks. ROFLMAO!! You should at least upgrade to petes in the Bay Area. But seriously San Francisco is home to Blue Bottle Coffee, some of the best coffee in California http://www.bluebottlecoffee.net/locations/webster-st/

It's been years.. but I drove 14 hours from San Fran to San Diego taking the 1 from Monterey to L.A. maybe we took 10-12 hours on the drive. It is absolutely incredibly beautiful drive. Just make sure you wear your depends if you're driving, those are some scary cliffs!

You could also try: http://www.classicwinevinegar.com/index.php?cPath=20 I don't know if they do large quantity like the others, but they are good.

Love fresh olive oil, what varieties do you grow?

Vilux comes in 5L Quantities for foodservice. I get it at Surfas in the Los Angeles area, but you should be able to find it online. Sparrow Lane makes excellent vinegar in gallon sizes for food service, Love their champagne vin. It's not listed on the website but you could call them. Sonoma Vinegar works is also really good, no website, mostly foodservice as well. http://www.sparrowlane.com/ Sonoma Vinegar Works [splash page only] 5300 Mountain Home Ranch Road Calistoga, CA 94515-9573 (707) 942-2740 http://www.sonomavinegar.com/

This topic reminds me of one of my favorite cookbooks, Gray Kunz 'Elements of Taste'. He really goes over the process of tasting food for the layering of flavors and textures and the effects of salt, sugar, vinegar, wine ect... He really affected how I look at creating dishes and more importantly tasting critically.

I've used Hillman IQF scallops on the halfshell raw and they were excellent. The benefit is consistent sizing and nice shells. They were excellent raw.

Any onion that is fresh from the ground. IE.. has not been cured to make it a storage onion and develop it's thicker skin. See 'new potato' I think of them as milder myself.

Los Angeles is well known for the quality and variety of ethnic cuisine. I am sure I am missing a lot of places and The San Gabriel Valley is also well known for Chinese, Vietnamese can also be found in Orange County. Most of the places I've chosen are centrally located or in West Los Angeles (where I know best). Thai: Jitlada: Pretty well known in the foodie community. Spicy. Southern Thai focus. Google them, one of the top Thai places in the USA. Palms Thai: Home of the famous thai elvis! lol the food is really good to, busy place. Not as 'serious' as Jitlada, but honest food. Ord noodles: Great noodles. Cheap and tasty. Korean: Parks BBQ for High end Korean bbq and their sister restaurant Don Dae Gam BBQ a pork intensive place. http://www.parksbbq.com/ A-Won: for Korean style sushi Da-Rae: great late night eats. Mexican: Monte Alban: Traditional food from Oaxaca in west Los Angeles Guelagetza: Also from Oaxaca in Korea town Tacomiendo: Great tacos, home made tortilla. Loteria: http://www.loteriagrill.com/ I like their chilaquiles verdes.. but they have good aguas frescas, tacos ect.. Japanese: Izakaya's: Honda-ya in Downtown; Fu Rai Bo on sawtelle Sushi: Mori sushi, Kiriko, Sushi Zo Noodles: Just check out Rameniac's blog http://www.rameniac.com/index/ Cali Cuisine LA style: Gjelina: http://www.gjelina.com/ The Tasting Kitchen: http://thetastingkitchen.com/ Akasha: http://www.akasharestaurant.com/ Palate Food + Wine: http://www.palatefoodwine.com/ Breakfast/Coffee: The Rose Cafe and Market. http://www.rosecafe.com/About-Home.html Bread and Porridge: http://www.breadandporridge.com/welcome%20to%20bread%20&%20porridge.htm Huckleberry Cafe and Bakery: http://www.huckleberrycafe.com/ The conservatory for coffee and tea: http://www.conservatorycoffeeandtea.com/ (Culver City) Groundworks: http://lacoffee.com/ (SM/ Hollywood/Downtown) LaMill: http://lamillcoffee.com/ (Silverlake) Luxxe: http://www.caffeluxxe.com/ (Santa Monica/Brentwood)

Lol! I guess vodka falls in the category something I don't need and artisanal version of.. Along with Artisanal Spam and American cheese food product. You can mass produce some pretty decent vodka. Someone has to keep the marketers employed though. We should give props to to the people who do it all themselves. Any others? http://www.anchorbrewing.com/about_us/anchordistilling.htm

Nineteen hundred and seventy two?

IME those are the resume's that get filed in the circular receptacle and don't get call backs. All they are going to see is two weeks, think bad thoughts, and if the restaurant is going through 40 resume's... It's not about reality, it's about the perception it creates. YMMV, of course it is an individual decision.

LOL. Buick Regal, Late 70's, Enchiladas Suisas at Sanborns in Tijuana with the family. Good times! 2 tacos and a sourdough chicken really hit the spot at 130a after working 12+ on the line. There food is okay for a fast food place. Their Cubanish sandwich someone else mentioned really is pretty good. That is a nice quality pickle.

You would be taking a chance that the chef would take it as pretentious name dropping, especially if he was hired their at an entry level position. Culinary is a small town chances are he'll be applying with chefs who worked there before. I would still mention it in the interview, but not on paper. Just my opinion. Arturo

What are your standards for Quality? I usually judge a stock by:Color, Clarity, Flavor, Aroma, gelatin content (for meat stocks). Like Paul mentioned traditionally a stock in the French style is meant to be neutral so that it takes on the flavor or what ever you use it with. I use a lot of bones + Chicken feet + stewing hen (usually a 'retired' laying hen) Covered barely with cold water. Salt. Bring up to a bare simmer (180-190). Skim regularly (scum NOT fat) top off with cold water as needed to keep covered. Add Mirepoix @4 hours 1:1:1:1 Leek, Onion, Celery root, carrot Add a Fat Bouquet Garnie @5 hours: Thyme, parsly stems, 2 bay leaves tied in leek green. Carefully, strain and cool.De-fat the next day. Reserve fat for cooking. * If you really want to you can add a whole head of garlic halved, or a Tablespoon of soy. Also you can reduce stock by a 1/4 the next day. * Save bones and make remoulage. Re cook bones/feet as a base for your next stock.

I wouldn't list a place you were at for 2 weeks. You might mention it during the course of an interview, as a point of reference to the kinds of places you would like to work at. Of course that the restaurant closed down won't count against you. Eventually the fast food places will fall off your resume of there own accord. It's important to try to take away something positive the experience and don't be ashamed of it. Please make sure that you are choosing restaurants that you can be at AT LEAST 1 year and preferably 2. Build your resume the right way. Try to progress through the stations as well as the seasons. Build diversity in your resume especially early on. Personally I wouldn't list skills. List accomplishments. Were you promoted? Did you work through all the staions? Did you create any menu items or specials. Did you help prevent waste and how. How many languages can you say 'Yes Chef!" in? ;^) Good Luck

For me it's all about freshness, I try to look for olive oils as close to harvest date as possible. And try to avoid those that don't give you that information. From California I like Bariani who put dates on the FRONT of the bottle! (Yay) http://www.barianioliveoil.com/catalog.php Katz is really good. You can taste the freshness. Not sure harvest date is on the bottle, but it is listed on the website. http://katzandco.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=133&osCsid=bdb531f3126c13a483017b7f8c0eec31 Valderrama (from Spain) First tasted this at the salon gastronomie in San Sebastian. Still a favorite. http://www.valderrama.es/us/produccion.asp

Economies of scale mostly. Feel free to ignore me! of course. I have to say I had a laugh with David Lebovitz when he posted this on his blog the other day :^D "I was thinking of having "If you change the ingredients in a recipe, results will vary" tattooed on my forehead, but there wasn't enough room."

Interesting, I'd love to hear more about the combo technique or Scottish technique. Usually what I do is make a dry cure 6 to 1 sugar to salt ( 4pts white 2 part brown)+ Dill, white pepper, all spice. Cure 2 days unpressed. Rinse, dry, form pellicle and cold smoke 1 hour. Generally my preference is not to add too much flavor to the salmon to let garnishes add the accents. But sometimes I'll do a more Cali take and add fennel fronds and preserved lemons to the cure.

LOL! Now that is a debated you are NOT going to get me to step into Since this is the 'recipe instructions and quantities you routinely ignore' thread. My point was NOT about the superiority of one type of egg over another but the importance of NOT ignoring recipe instructions and quantities If one routinely swaps XL eggs for standard Lg eggs it will make a difference in the recipe for a home cook, Especially when you go to double the recipe for a family gathering or what not and you double the mistake. I'm not saying never make changes, just be careful to fully understand those changes, especially in baking where there formulas& procedures are very carefully balanced out. Of course this is predicated on the assumption that the formula or recipe is well written and tested in the first place!

Best Yuzu juice around. Well worth the cost for commercial use! If you try it report back, http://www.chefswarehouse.com/Yuzu-Juice-750-ml/M/B00202SZ2Q.htm

You are correct. Weighing is always more accurate. Conversions like that are seen as with in the margin of error. The egg industry is remarkably good at its size/weights over a dozen. Individual eggs may be off, by a but but the bigger issue is not getting all the egg out of the shell. You would be surprised by how much you can leave behind if you are not careful!

Not true. Most kitchen recipes are standardized for large eggs which are a standard 24 oz per dozen (or ~2oz per egg)it makes it easy to scale up or down w/o weighing. Most kitchens i've been in still use # of eggs (each)UNLESS they are using liquid egg products. Usually for hollandaise, where food safety is more the issue. I've never worked in a kitchen that used anything but Large AA eggs. I certainly haven't been everywhere, but that is my experience.